Season Three of ‘True Detective’ Set in the Ozarks

True Detective returns on HBO for season three Jan. 13. There are eight episodes in the season, and two will air back to back on premiere night. Nic Pizzolatto created the show.

Mahershala Ali stars in the new season, which is set in the Ozarks and plays out in three time periods.

Ali plays detective Wayne Hays, with Stephen Dorff starring as Roland West, the detective who investigated the case with Hays, and Carmen Ejogo starring as school teacher and writer Amelia Reardon.

In 2015, Hays, retired and his memory failing, looks back at the disappearance of 12-year-old Will and 10-year-old Julie Purcell, recalling the days and weeks immediately following the 1980 crime, as well as developments in 1990, when he and his former partner, West, were subpoenaed after a break in the case.

Pizzolatto wrote all the episodes, while he and David Milch wrote the fourth, and he and Graham Gordy the sixth. The season is filmed in northwest Arkansas.

Pizzolatto, Jeremy Saulnier and Daniel Sackheim direct. 

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.